I Did Not Know That

In our house we have a drinking game that is started when someone says those very words. Today on the anniversary of the 1936 death of King George V, I find myself saying those very same words. Did you know this?

By 20 January, he was close to death. His physicians, led by Lord Dawson of Penn, issued a bulletin with the words "The King's life is moving peacefully towards its close."^[118][119] Dawson's private diary, unearthed after his death and made public in 1986, reveals that the King's last words, a mumbled "God damn you!",^[120] were addressed to his nurse, Catherine Black, when she gave him a sedative that night. Dawson, who supported the "gentle growth of euthanasia",^[121] admitted in the diary that he hastened the King's death by injecting him, after 11:00 p.m., with two consecutive lethal injections: 3/4 of a grain of morphine followed shortly afterwards by a grain of cocaine.^[120][122] Dawson wrote that he acted to preserve the King's dignity, to prevent further strain on the family, and so that the King's death at 11:55 p.m. could be announced in the morning edition of The Times newspaper rather than "less appropriate ... evening journals".^[120][122] Neither Queen Mary, who was intensely religious and might not have sanctioned euthanasia, nor the Prince of Wales was consulted. The royal family did not want the King to endure pain and suffering and did not want his life prolonged artificially but neither did they approve Dawson's actions.^[123] British Pathé announced the King's death the following day, in which he was described as "for each one of us, more than a King, a father of a great family".^[124]

Interesting.Euthanasia of the king.